By Steve Pratt
ITA
FORT WORTH, Texas – Playing just 15 miles from where he grew up in the heart of Texas, Abilene Christian University senior Jonathan Sheehy from Arlington defeated Stanford University sophomore Sangeet Sridhar, 7-5, 6-2, to win the Oracle ITA Summer Circuit National Summer Championship singles title Tuesday at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center on the campus of TCU.
Sheehy wasn’t done there, as he later teamed with Texas Tech senior Parker Wynn to take home the doubles top prize, as the pairing beat the University of Tennessee’s Adam Walton and Andrew Rogers in the doubles final, 8-5.
Sheehy earned $3,000 for the singles win while Sridhar of Scottsdale, Ariz., takes home $1,500. Sheey and Wynn split $1,250 for their doubles victory while Volunteer teammates Walton and Rogers split $625.
This year marked the second season that Oracle and the ITA awarded prize money at the ITA National Summer Championships. With the win, Sheehy also receives an automatic berth into the ITA All-American Tournament taking place for the first time in Tulsa, Okla., Oct. 5-13.
With the doubles final following the singles, Sheehy knew he wanted to get off the court quickly and win in straights sets, something he wasn’t accustomed to doing on his way to the final. Four of Sheehy’s five matches went to a super tiebreaker after splitting sets, including two 11-9 wins, and a 10-8 victory.
“I started off a little rough, a little slow, but I was able to pick it up and get some balls in the court and took off from there,” Sheehy said. “It’s just big to get into the main draw (at the All-American). We’ve only done pre-qualies before. It’s nice to have Abilene Christian in the big stuff and hopefully people see that.”
Sheehy said now that he has a national ITA title, more eyes will be on him this season. “I have absolutely no expectations this year,” he said. “I just want to go out there and make it big.”
After the doubles win, Sheehy said he and his fellow Texas resident Wynn felt comfortable the entire tournament playing with each other. “Obviously we don’t play for the same school, but we grew up playing a lot of juniors together,” Sheehy said. “It kind of clicked for us this week and we did all the fundamentals this week. We just had fun.”
In doubles, Wynn said playing on his home college courts helped. “We felt at home, which felt good,” he said. “We didn’t expect to do this and had no expectations.”
To view all the draws go to the tournament page HERE.
